


the bitterest taste

by tinysmallest



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Child Abuse, Father-Son Relationship, Fatherhood, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:11:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26333188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinysmallest/pseuds/tinysmallest
Summary: Greg learns very young how awful humans can be, even to their own flesh and blood.So he learns to run in the opposite direction.
Relationships: Greg Universe & Steven Universe
Comments: 18
Kudos: 38





	the bitterest taste

**Author's Note:**

> me: let's finish some of those like thirteen wips I have lying around  
> my brain: die

Greg knows what cruelty is.

Before he can even walk, before he can speak, before he even knows what pain is, he knows disgusted, frustrated fingers pulling his hair to make him stop accidentally biting his mother's nipple while breastfeeding, as though it were something an infant can do on purpose.

And he knows this fact later, not because a baby of a mere few months could retain any such memory, but because he hears his mother casually telling the story to one of his aunts at a family gathering when she sighs and exhausted tale of her bitey baby.

He doesn't stay to see if she heeds his mother's advice. He won't be able to control himself, and he doesn't need a refresher how his mother's hand has since upgraded from pulling hair to open-handed reminders to know his place.

They're rare, but impactful. Greg doesn't realize it might not be normal until he watches a classmate accidentally spill her wet art project on her mother at school pick-up, and as he watches, stock-still with the creeping sensation of doom crawling up his spine, as she just laughs and makes a joke about her daughter being an eager beaver before consoling the sad child about her ruined art project.

She promises to get her daughter ice cream.

It wasn't him, his art project, or his mother, but he's shrunk into himself regardless, and when his mother arrives he says even less than usual and tries not to flinch when she addresses him.

Ice cream. For ruining her skirt. It boggles his tiny mind.

He continues to watch his peers as he grows up. They all seem so happy to go home at the end of the day. It feels fake. He can't imagine a world where anyone would want to go home, no matter how miserable school was.

Then he remembers the little girl from second grade and wonders if maybe his life is the fake, weird one.

He sure doesn't feel real, half the time.

Innocence dwindles as he leaves elementary and middle school behind him but even so his peers sometimes exhibit behavior that shocks him.

"Why would he do that, though?" one of his classmates asks about the father in a book they're reading for English lit, and Greg would assume it was a question designed to waste time if not for the bemusement so genuine he can't imagine it's anything but sincere. He stares at her, and she listens to the teacher explain that the father is an angry, empty person who can't handle a little embarrassment, not even an accidental offense from his own son.

"That sounds unrealistic," his classmate said.

Greg is reminded of how angry his father became when he wandered into the living room to show him the terrible art he'd drawn of him. He interrupted something he was doing with friends. His father called his drawing awful and ripped it up.

He opts not to say anything as the class agrees the abuse theme in this book is heavy-handed, and doodles music notes all over his notebook instead, chewing his lip almost hard enough to draw blood.

The books where the parents are all nice and cuddly are the ones that feel unrealistic. But they're comforting. Sometimes he imagines what it must be like to get your work put on the fridge. To get a hug for no reason.

To have parents who didn't see him miming along to music at the mall while shopping for back to school clothes, and smack him on the back of the head.

He's not sure he would call it all abuse. The word sits badly on his tongue. Like it doesn't belong there. Like he has no right to say it.

Plenty of words feel bad to him, so he's not entirely unused to it. They're sour, tainted.

He's a master at noticing tone and word choice, body language. He knows how to go small and silent and make himself scarce. He's not surprised when he overhears mean-spirited gossip, and he learned years ago not to say anything about it.

His extensive knowledge about how people are feeling leads him to noticing surprising things. One day he tries saying 'you're very pretty' to a girl all hunched in on herself in a way that reminded him of himself, and she opened up like a flower with a bright, shy smile.

His mother's tongue clucking when he sighs over a hamburger commercial later that night still makes him feel small and stupid, but the memory of that girl's smile brings some warmth back. He decides to do it again tomorrow.

"You're really smart."  
"You're talented."  
"That was a good job!"

Sometimes they elicit smiles. Sometimes sneers. Bradley Baker never liked him and he's not especially stunned when the bigger boy dumps his lunch tray over his head.

He is, however, hurt. It makes him feel dumber, too.

His father piles on four weeks later by fixing him, bruised and muddy and on the verge of tears, with a hard look. The one that narrows all of his disgust and disapproval and disappointment into one, single laser beam aimed right at his chest.

And then he tells him he's decided on a sport for him. He's going to try out for wrestling, because a boy his age ought to be harder. Stop crying about people being mean. Life is mean.

Greg protests. It's a mistake, but it's automatic and once he's started he can't take it back. He doesn't want to hurt anyone. Not even in a controlled environment where no one will probably really get hurt. 

He remembers the feeling of being pinned and having his head grabbed and his entire body weighted down to the floor and feels sick at the thought of it happening again or having to do that to anyone else.

"I'm not raising a pansy." His father's words cut to his core. He hears the other remarks that are probably commands but doesn't fully absorb them, like they come from far away.

His mother makes an offhand comment about him at least putting all that weight to good use.

Greg knows what cruelty is.

So when his son brings him his shitty artwork and his shrieking laughter and his loud outdoor voice, Greg smiles and hangs the drawings on the van walls and patiently reminds him that Greg isn't that far away.

He teaches him how to play music, and how to dance, and thanks him for the shells and rocks Steven brings him.

He gives hugs without asking, and cuddles, and tells him that he's proud of him and always will be.

He never imagined fatherhood could taste this sweet.

Greg intends to savor every moment.

**Author's Note:**

> This is messy and written on my phone because I forgot my computer at home but enjoy.


End file.
